Sissinghurst Castle Talk

Sissinghurst Castle, located in Kent, England, is one of the world’s most celebrated gardens. In the 1930’s Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson created a garden in the ruin of an Elizabethan manor, realigning Sissinghurst with its Elizabethan past. Sissinghurst also had a past as a thriving farm.

KATHIE CASE

508-627-5349

(kathleencase@comcast.net)

I think we are all confused on what time of year it is. The sun is coming up later and later and it is setting earlier and earlier, however the temperatures are still in the mid-sixties and low seventies. I know a lot of us are not complaining as we don’t have to turn on the heat.

BRAD WOODGER

508-627-4216

(ibwsgolf@aol.com)

Thumper taught me that if I didn’t have something nice to say about someone, then I should say nothing at all. So mum is the word on today.

Trudy Taylor of Aquinnah has a "hole" lot going on. She called last Saturday morning with an inquiry about a houseplant harasser.

It seems that something is afoot among her flowers. Her houseplants are being disturbed by a dastardly digger! Someone or something has been excavating the soil in her potted plants. The culprit digs a hole and removes the soil, leaving it in a pile next to the pots.

Once a boy met girl. They bought a sailboat and used it to do marine mammal, bird and lizard research between Maine and the Lesser Antilles. They made a pact when they met that they wouldn’t do the same thing for more than 10 years. Kiddingly, they also said when they reached a certain age — old folks — they would purchase an RV and travel around the United States. The same couple sold their sailboat and went to work running a small cruise ship that held 85 passengers. He was the captain and she the naturalist.

Editor’s Note: Columnist Lynne Irons was struck with the flu and will be back next week. The following column by her was published in the Gazette on Oct. 12, 2007.

By LYNNE IRONS

Editor’s Note: Columnist Lynne Irons was struck with the flu and will be back next week. The following column by her was published in the Gazette on Oct. 12, 2007.

Arboretum Award

On June 28 the Polly Hill Arboretum’s newsletter, Meristems, received theDorothy E. Hansell Publication Award for newsletters and special publications at the American Public Gardens Association (APGA) annual meeting.

Wonder-Full

Sense of Wonder is about to begin their fall season of art classes. The classes are, as always, led by Pam Benjamin with help this year from Lily Jane Morris. Lily is a graduate of Mass College of Art and is also a past Sense of Wonder camper and counselor. You could say she has wonder pulsing through her veins.

Classes begin soon with the following schedule: Tuesdays 3:30 to 5 p.m. for K through 1st grade; Wednesdays 3:30 to 5 p.m. for 4th through 6th grades; Thursdays 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. for 2nd and 3rd grades.

Slow Food Martha’s Vineyard is combining its philosophy with the ancient traditions of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Indian Tribe with a celebratory harvest dinner beginning at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22, at the Chilmark Community Center. Traditional native Wampanoag dishes including journey cakes with cranberries, venison stew, and sea bass with sage stuffing will be served. Corn meal from the Sandwich Grist Mill will be used for the authentic journey cakes to be cooked in Juli Vanderhoop’s clay oven.

Among the greatest legacies of Queen Victoria, who died in 1891, are the funeral rituals from that long-ago era that bears her name, the Victorian Age. When her husband, Prince Albert, died in 1861 the queen was so devastated she retreated from Buckingham Palace to her country estates, and wore widow’s weeds for the rest of her life.

In style for many decades, black was the new black.